Many businesses, including small businesses, have adopted, and come to rely on, one or more financial management systems such as, but not limited to, computing system, and/or on-line, financial management systems that provide bookkeeping, payroll, inventory, point-of-sale, and various other business related functions and capabilities.
For many business owners/managers, and particularly small business owners/managers, it is extremely important to identify, and secure the services of, accounting professionals, such as bookkeepers, payroll specialists, office managers, accountants, certified public accountants, consultants, and/or tax professionals, who are familiar with not only the particular financial management systems used by the small business, but also the type of business conducted by the small business owner, and the particular needs of the small business owner/small business. However, currently there are relatively few options for finding accounting professionals, and virtually none of these currently available options take into account, at least in any meaningful way, the specific needs of the small business owner, the financial management systems used by the small business, and the needs/availability of the accounting professionals.
Indeed, what few referral systems are available for identifying “relevant” accounting professionals typically refer the small business owner to accounting professionals based almost entirely on the needs of the provider of the referral, and/or the qualifications of the accounting professionals. As an example, many currently available referral systems recommend accounting professionals that have the highest, but not necessarily the most relevant, qualifications and/or certifications associated with a given financial management system provider. As a result, it often occurs that the same “highly certified” accounting professionals are recommended over and over. Not only can this result in these few accounting professionals being overwhelmed, but it also can mean many accounting professionals who are fully qualified for a particular business owner's needs are never considered, or even brought into the system.
In other cases, accounting professionals are recommended based on a single other criteria, such as location, determined to be the main criteria by the provider of the referral system, and often without regard to the specific needs of the small business owner, or the accounting professionals' needs.
In other cases, the accounting professionals are recommended, or prioritized, based on fees paid to the provider of the recommendation/referral. Once again, the result is that the recommendation/referral often has little alignment with the specific needs of the small business owner.
In short, currently available systems for identifying “relevant” accounting professionals are largely driven by the concerns/parameters of the provider of the financial management systems and/or, at best, the needs/desires of accounting professionals linked to, and/or certified through, the provider of the financial management systems, while and the business owner, and often the accounting professionals themselves, are more or less passive participants in the process.
What is needed is a method and system for recommending accounting professionals that not only takes into account the particular financial management system(s) used by the business, but also involves the business owners/managers, and the accounting professionals, in the process in order to recommend accounting professionals based on the specific needs of the small business owner and the needs, record, and availability, of the accounting professionals to be recommended.